When
Barack Obama said that the Henry Louis Gates affair was a teaching moment,
he spoke truly. But the key is ensuring that the right things are taught
and the right people learn. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to happen.

There
is no need to rehash the events of July 16 chapter and verse. We all
know about how the Harvard professor flew into a rage of racial accusations
and haughty posturing after Sergeant James Crowley appeared at his Cambridge
home to investigate a report of a possible break-in. We’ve heard
that Gates called Crowley a “racist” and said he was being
targeted because “I’m a black man in America.” We
know how Barack Obama stirred the pot, saying at a press conference
that he didn’t know all the facts but then averring that the police
“acted stupidly.” And we also know that it’s a foot-in-mouth
moment Obama wishes he could do a Groundhog Day on, and that he fancies
a beer a substitute for an apology.

Moreover,
the obvious points have already been made. We know that the police were
simply following procedure in requesting Gates’ identification
and asking that he step outside his home. It has also been mentioned
that, far from the police racially profiling the man, he and Obama applied
that technique in assuming that the white police officer was bigoted
and/or acting stupidly. And, in keeping with last point, some of the
boldest commentators even have hinted that bigotry may lie in the hearts
of Gates and Obama. Yet no one has thus far dared expose the pretense.

I
didn’t need the Gates affair, eye-opening for some, to understand
the nature of a Gates or of Obama. Immediately upon learning of Gates’
existence, I knew he was another one of the president’s many,
many bigoted men. And even before Obama dared stray beyond the guiderails
of the teleprompter and commented on the matter, I knew that another
one of the president’s bigoted men stared back at him every day
in the mirror.

In
reality, I knew this even before learning of yet another one of the
president’s bigoted “men,” Sonia “Wise Latina”
Sotomayor and even, actually, prior to being bombarded with the bile
of his most notorious bigoted man, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. I knew
it for a very simple reason.

For
all intents and purposes, politically liberal blacks are by definition
bigoted.

This
is true almost to a man.

Of
course, we all know what is coming. Many will say that I’m prejudiced
for painting all the members of such a large group with the same brush.
But let’s note that “prejudice” in the negative sense
denotes an unfavorable opinion about a person, group or thing that has
no basis in reality. For instance, the Wise Latina had her
foot-in-mouth moment when she said, “I would hope that a wise
Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than
not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived
that life.” However, if this had a basis in reality, it would
not be a prejudice. So let’s examine whether or not my assertion
has that basis.

I’ll
begin by emphasizing two things, the first of which will make it seem
as if I’m being politically correct and the second of which will
disabuse the reader of that notion. First, it goes without saying that
there are blacks who aren’t bigoted — they also aren’t
liberal. There are my two favorite economists, Walter Williams and Thomas
Sowell; the man I want as president, Alan Keyes; talk show host Larry
Elder; minister and head of B.O.N.D Jesse Lee Peterson; and many, many
others. Between this ideological set and politically liberal blacks
is another basic group, one epitomized by Colin Powell. While its members
are weak sisters philosophically, it wouldn’t be fair to describe
all of them as bigoted.

Advertisement

Now
for the second thing: even putting the Keyes and Powell groups together,
percentagewise they are part of a very small minority.

Now
let’s move on. In
the movieBoyz N’ the Hood, the father character,
played by Laurence Fishburne, gives a motivational speech about how
the presence of alcohol and gun stores in South Central L.A. is the
result of a white conspiracy. Note that he is cast in the film as the
wise patriarch, a voice of reason.

Of
course, this is Hollywood, but it’s also a case of art imitating
life. We long ago learned about the large numbers of black people who
believe the AIDS virus is the result of a white conspiracy to wipe out
blacks. And this paranoia also explains countless everyday interactions.
For instance, some years ago there was the story of that public official
who used the word “niggardly” at a meeting, and I documented
the woes of Illinoisan David Gonzalez, who, replying to a query, told
a black co-worker that a symbol he was wearing was a clan badge (Scottish
clan, a symbol of ethnicity). In both cases, the men were targeted by
bigoted leftist blacks who were sure they were prejudiced.

Then
there is bigoted Obama man Attorney General Eric Holder, who mentioned
that he also was “profiled” by the police in this nation
of cowards. Now, I don’t doubt that he believes he was unjustly
targeted, but, then, I know something else: I’ve been “profiled”
as well. I could tell you about a couple of incidents in which I was
pulled over simply because I was in the wrong place, in the wrong kind
of vehicle and, in one case, the wrong age. This, not to mention that
I was the wrong sex — remember, the police view men much more
suspiciously than women because, like some other groups, they commit
an inordinate amount of the crime (note that the complaints of profiling
we hear always involve black men). Then there is that esteemed academic
Professor Gates, who was sure that Sgt. Crowley was a “‘racist’
police officer.” And there are many other such examples.

Now,
why would anyone read bigoted motives into innocent things? It’s
not always a Machiavellian playing of the race card, I can assure you.
There is another reason.

We’ve
all had experiences with those who are prejudiced against an individual.
It might have been a mother-in-law who just couldn’t stand her
son’s wife, or a person who, after years of marital conflict,
was fatally biased against his spouse. And when you thus hate someone,
it’s so often the case that you view him through colored glasses.
His trespasses are then never innocent mistakes, are they? And are his
errant comments ever just slips of the tongue? No, they’re the
result of evil motives, a desire to target you for attack. The thinking
is, “You know, that’s just the kind of thing that scum
of the Earth would do!” In reality, we’d do well to
bear in mind that you should “Never attribute to malice what is
better explained by stupidity,” but the prejudiced person will
never distinguish between the innocent and insidious. For hatred is
like darkness: the more there is, the less you can see.

It
is no different with politically liberal blacks. Gates, AIDS conspiracy
theorists, the niggardly-and-clan police and many others are just sure
that those who “offended” them are bigoted because, well,
that’s just what white people do.

Also
note that the demonization of whites is part of leftist dogma (I refute
this here). This was apparent even four decades ago when feminist
Susan Sontag infamously proclaimed, “The white race is the cancer
of human history.” And the idea gains ever more currency. In fact,
I have encountered numerous whites who have expressed such sentiments,
including a man online recently who wrote that he was “ashamed”
to be white.

Yet,
if such anti-white loathing is present among leftist whites out of a
sense of being “oppressors,” how much more prevalent is
it among leftist blacks, who view themselves as the oppressed? The answer
is that it’s common enough — and accepted enough —
so that another one of the president’s bigoted men, Reverend Joseph
Lowery, was given the podium and allowed to pray for a day “when
white will embrace what is right” during Obama’s inauguration.
Oh, and Obama didn’t say he was sorry for that, either. It just
seems that he only apologizes to those he considers alien
when they reside overseas.

Then
we have that old political observation about how blacks are actually
quite conservative culturally. This evidenced itself just last November
when 70 percent of blacks voted for California’s Proposition 8,
which defined marriage as the union between a man and woman, versus
only 49 percent of whites. Now, while the phenomenon of black cultural
conservatism is certainly exaggerated a bit, we have to ask, why would
such a group vote Democrat 95 percent of the time? The answer is race.
There is a strong feeling in the black community that the Republicans
are the white party, which is no doubt why Screaming Howard Dean played
upon this stereotype in 2008. And to rise above this — as
Alan Keyes and the other fine gentlemen I’ve mentioned have done
— is to transcend leftist politics itself.

Advertisement

As
for politically liberal blacks, the reality is that they are consumed
by race. They live and die with it, eat it and breathe it. As an example,
consider a certain affirmation black women sometimes utter to young
black boys: “You’re going to grow up to be a strong, young
black man!” Now, this isn’t designed simply to
reassure the lads that they’re not going to go the way of Michael
Jackson. There is another reason.

Everyone
tends to define himself in some manner, viewing some particular status
as central to his being. This should be “child of God” but
usually is something else; it could be the quite wholesome identity
of “father” or “mother,” or it could be “policeman,”
“doctor” or “athlete.” Then again, it could
also have to do with one’s group.

In
the case of politically liberal blacks, they identify so closely with
their race that there simply is little, if any, separation between them
and it. As an example of how this manifests itself, consider Congressman
Sheila Jackson-Lee’s 2005 statement during a House
discussion, “I came here as a slave; I now want the right
to vote!” Now, just for the record, this woman isn’t 175
years old. But was it just a manner of speaking? Well, when I gave a
talk about so-called racial profiling at a Toronto symposium some years
back, I took questions afterwards and one I fielded was from a black
student. He began by passionately saying, “There was a time when
you and I couldn’t drink out of the same water fountain . . .
.”

He
was about 16 years old.

Rest
assured, it’s not that these folks had a Shirley MacLaine vision
of a past life. It is that identification. In their universe, “I”
am the group; the group is me. Anything that has happened to the group
has happened to me, and any characterization of the group is a characterization
of me.

The
latter is, by the way, one reason why people (of any group) exhibiting
this phenomenon cannot abide any criticism of their group. Their self-image
is so intertwined with the image of the collective that anything diminishing
the latter diminishes the former. This helps explain why such people
will jump through hoops to rationalize away unflattering facts about
their groups. It sheds light on why individuals such as Obama can say
that blacks get stopped by law enforcement disproportionately while
ignoring the reason for it: they commit crimes disproportionately. The
black person who has amalgamated group and self cannot acknowledge this
fact because, in his mind, it would be tantamount to saying that he
was criminally inclined.

It
would make him feel like less as a person.

Now,
there is a funny thing about hang-ups. Many of us have them, but we
usually don’t recognize them as hang-ups. We don’t realize
that our hang-ups are just that: things that seem all-important and
ever-relevant because they’re blown out of proportion in our minds
and hearts. Rather, we think they seem all-important because they are
so. And here is the crux of the matter: because we believe this,
we assume other people have recognized their importance as well and
thus must also make them a priority. In other words, blacks who place
race at the center of their being will assume that whites would, recognizing
the importance of this factor, follow suit.

This
perspective explains a lot. It explains why a black man who hears a
white guy utter a word that sounds vaguely like a racial epithet or
who is asked to step out of his home by a white cop reads bigoted motives
into the situations. It explains why many blacks, despite being advantaged
by an affirmative-action society, believe they’ve experienced
great “racism.” Is it real or is it Memorex? When you interpret
all the normal bumps and stumbles of human interaction as expressions
of bigotry, you certainly have experienced great “racism.”
That is, at least in your own mind.

Couple
the above perspective with the fact that many blacks are told from toddlerhood
on that the white man has kept them down (just think of the kids in
Jeremiah Wright’s church), and it explains something else. We’ve
all heard the leftist shtick about how only whites can be “racist,”
which is based on the convenient interpretation that being so requires
power, something only whites possess (untrue itself). Of course, since
“racism” was originated by leftists to facilitate their
arguments, they can define it any way they want. This is why I avoid
the term and instead try to use “bigotry” — I reject
their lexicon. Yet, this language manipulation is driven by something
real, something substantive, and it harks back to what I said earlier
about prejudice.

You
see, when you view the object of your hatred as truly evil (“white
devils,” anyone?), then, in your eyes, your feelings aren’t
actually prejudice, are they? They cannot be because you will view them
as having a basis in reality. In other words, you can’t
be “racist” because, by gum, you have a right to hate evil.
And this is of course a common failing of man; other people may be wrong
to hate, but, well, we’re different. We have a reason to despise
our bogeymen.

Subscribe to the NewsWithViews Daily News Alerts!

Enter Your E-Mail Address:

Of
course, because I wrote this essay, many people will hurl that r-word
at me. But who really is prejudiced? Who really has drawn conclusions
that have no basis in reality? If I’m wrong in what I’ve
said, then, sure, perhaps it is me. If I’m wrong, then you may
have reason to suspect I’m hung-up. But if I’m right, then
I have just explained for you the Gateses, Lowerys and Wrights of the
world — and the Obamas. If I’m right, it means we have put
someone who is hung-up — and perhaps hateful — in the White
House.

Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist
and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in
print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on
the Rush Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning
Michael Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan's magazine,
The American Conservative, and he writes regularly for The New American,
and Christian Music Perspective.